Another photo of the Blue Mountain Coffee
"As long as there was coffee
in the world, how bad
could things be?
~ Cassandra Clare
"AUGH." I was in a bit of a pickle after dinner last night.
"Are you feeling sick?" Mike asked me.
"It's heart-burn city," I moaned back and repeated a number of times both last night and during th day today.
I think it was the coffee. Actually, I think it was the combination of coffee, truffles, cheese and cured meats. (Even the thought of them right now makes me cringe.
If you read this blog, you know that Mike and I had Blue Mountain Coffee last night after dinner. Touted as the "best coffee in the world," we just had to try it. The waitress had a conniption when I asked for milk with it, but I can tell you that the milk had little effect on it. With the exception of the mud we had for coffee in Greece a few years ago, I think the Blue Mountain was one of the strongest coffee I've ever had.
Latte Bianca
"I'm going to get a latte today," I mentioned to Mike as we walked into the bar this morning. "I think the extra milk will help." If you order lattes at Starbucks or most American coffee bars, you know that they are espresso and steamed milk with little or no foam. My feeling was drinking a latte would not aggravate the pain I was feeling.
"A latte and an americano," I ordered when we got to the bar.
"Do you want cocoa?" the barista asked me as he poured the steamed milk into my cup. I nodded and watched as he shook the cocoa on top of the steaming milk. It dawned on me at that moment that I had ordered a latte bianca which is, quite simply, hot milk. I should have ordered a cafe latte. Duh. I'd done the same thing a couple of years ago when we were in Emilia-Romagna. Since I'm not a big milk drinker (as a coffee condiment excepted), I swore I'd never make that mistake again.
Apparently I did just that this morning. Sigh.
I drank it, and it didn't kill me. It probably did me more good than the cafe latte would have, to tell the truth. I've actually gone all day without have any coffee which, I hope, helped.
Cappuccino in Avignon
But that leads me to this: I want a cup of coffee. Not the two-ounce thing that you get when you order coffee in italy. Not cappuccino. Not cafe latte. Not bicerin. Not cafe marocchino. Coffee. In a mug. In a Starbucks cup. In something that is larger than a thimble
"You could make it, you know," the other half of the adventure duo said to me when I told him of my desire for the stuff this afternoon. I stared at him.
"And I'm going to do that how?"
"We have a coffee pot in the flat," he answered without thinking.
"What we have in the flat is a stove-top espresso maker, not a coffee pot." I rolled my eyes. (You probably expected that by now, didn't you?) "Besides, I barely know how to make coffee using that machine we have at home."
"Bob and Steph made some with theirs last week," he retorted, again without thinking.
"They know how to make coffee in the first place." He was skating on thin ice. "Besides, our pot-espresso-making-thingy looks like it went through the war without being washed. I wouldn't drink anything that came out of it." So there.
Which leaves me still craving a mug of hot coffee with cream.
By the way, in case you didn't know this, there are no Starbucks in Italy, so that's not an option. There's a reason, and I don't want to get into it tonight. There are, however, McCafes (Yes, of McDonald's fame), although they're frequented mostly by non-Italians. We don't have one in SPoleto, of course.
That said, tomorrow we're heading to Perugia for a few hours. Look for me at the McCafe across from the train station around 10:00.
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